The Humble Steak

     I know, I know, "Steak? Really? C'mon man!"  I've chosen steak for my first topic for one simple reason.  Steak is recognized, uncontestedly, as the quintessential American dinner.  Eating a nice, fat, juicy steak is a truly wonderful experience.  While this may be true, it is also true that a lot of Americans can't put a decent steak on a plate to save their lives.  This I hope to change.
     Think about it.  Aside from some oil, salt, and pepper, it's all technique.  Good technique can make a mediocre steak exquisite, while bad techniqe can ruin a good one.
     Before we get to cooking, let's look at just what a steak is.  A steak is any cross-cut slab of meat, generally beef and usually between one and two inches thick, that is meant to be cooked quickly over high heat.  They are cut from large chunks of meat called sub-primals.  A steer has two of each of the following sub-primals:  chuck, rib, short loin, sirloin, round, flank, plate, brisket, and shank.
     Now we choose out steak.  I prefer the rib-eye, or eye steak.  It contains lots of intramuscular fat which melts when cooked, lubricating the muscle strands, making it oh so tender.  That's why this steak is excellent for beginner cooks and why it feels so juicy even if it is a bit overcooked.
     In my opinion, a perfect steak is one darkly seared on the outside with an interior cooked not one degree past 130 F.  While this can be accomplished on a grill or in a broiler, those are tricky propositions at best, especially with rib-eyes because all that intramuscular fat, when it melts, drips and tends to cause rather nasty flare ups in open flame environments.  So, your best bet is pan roasting; searing the outside in a hot cast-iron skillet and finishing the interior in the oven.
     Oh, and after you cook your steak to perfection, let it rest for at least five minutes.  Heat is like pressure, and cutting your steak before it cools a bit is akin to opening a spigot.  Just cover the meat in aluminum foil or a metal bown while it rests and it'll stay plenty warm.
     Okay, are you ready to cook now?  I hope so, because here we go!
You'll need:
Hardware:  a 12-inch cast-iron skillet
                  tongs
                  a colander
                  a metal bowl
                  a pot lid
Software:  2 boneless rib-eye steaks
                 1 teaspoon canola oil (enough to coat the steaks)
                 1 teaspoon salt
                 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (freshly ground, of course)
1)  Allow your steaks to come to room temperature for 1 hour.  (Trust me, it helps in the browning process.)
2)  Preheat your oven to 500 F and slide in your skillet
3)  When your oven finishes preheating, carefully move your skillet to your cook top over high heat for five minutes.
4)  Lightly coat the steaks with canola oil, then sprinkly with salt and pepper, place carefully in the skillet and do not touch for 30 seconds.
5)  Flip the steaks with the tongs (they keep the juices in the steaks, unlike a fork which releases them into the pan) and cook for another 30 seconds.
6)  Move the skillet back into the oven for 2 minutes.  Flip the steaks and cook for another 2 minutes.
7)  Remove the skillet to a heat-safe surface.  For medium-rare, the internal temperature of the steaks should be between 130-140 F.
8)  Allow the steaks to rest in a colander, set inside a metal bowl, covered with the pot lid for 5 minutes.
9)  For a fast and easy steak sauce, remove the colander and move the metal bowl (along with the drippings from the steaks) to the stovetop over high heat and whisk in a little butter.
     Well, now you've cooked a delicious steak and made a sauce for it.  It wasn't that hard, was it?  Enjoy!

Anyone Can Cook

     I am happy to say that in today's society more and more people are realizing the exciting and gratifying experience that is cooking.  It is an unfortunate truth, however, that for every culinary success story, there are dozens of people who take one look at a cookbook and exclaim "I can't do it!"  They promptly turn away and never lay a finger on that book again, only cooking things that come in boxes with the instructions written on the back (add water, stir to combine, cook for 18-20 minutes, let set for 5 minutes, serve.)  Or, perhaps, they go on the adventureous side and cook things THEIR way.  Either way, more often than not, produces meals that would be ashamed to show their faces to the light of day.  These people end up putting themselves, not to mention their families, through unimaginable torture.  
     The simple truth is, these people don't have the patience to learn.  They won't allow themselves to make a single mistake; and if they do make a mistake, which they invariably do, they exclaim "I can't do it" and stop any efforts to explore the culinary world further.  It's rather pitiful, isn't it?
     What these culinary younglings don't realize is that, with the right equipment, the right technique, and some patience, anyone, even a 17-year old high school student (that's me), can cook.
     Over the next few weeks, it will be my mission to demonstrate this to you.  I won't beat you over the head with recipes, but I won't bore you with milions of details either.  Instead, I'll provide you with all of the information you need to cook a simply magnificent meal.  Hopefully, you'll be so entertained that you won't even know you're learning.

all recipes credited to Alton Brown